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New York Intellectuals

{{Short description|Mid-20th-century American writers and critics}}

{{for|the 1987 book|The New York Intellectuals (book)}}

{{more footnotes|date=August 2011}}

The New York Intellectuals were a group of American writers and literary critics based in New York City in the mid-20th century. They advocated left-wing politics, being firmly anti-Stalinist. The group is known for having sought to integrate literary theory with Marxism and socialism while rejecting Soviet socialism as a workable or acceptable political model.

Trotskyism emerged as the most common standpoint among these anti-Stalinist Marxists. Irving Kristol, Irving Howe, Seymour Martin Lipset, Leslie Fiedler, and Nathan Glazer were members of the Trotskyist Young People's Socialist League.Alexander Bloom: Prodigal Sons. The New York Intellectuals and Their World, Oxford University Press: NY / Oxford 1986, p. 109.

Many of these intellectuals were educated at City College of New York ("Harvard of the Proletariat"),{{cite news |last=Leonhardt |first=David |date=2017-01-18 |title=America's Great Working-Class Colleges |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/18/opinion/sunday/americas-great-working-class-colleges.html |work=New York Times |access-date=2020-06-27}} New York University, and Columbia University in the 1930s,{{cn|date=January 2019}} and associated in the next two decades with the left-wing political journals Partisan Review, Dissent, and the then-left-wing but later neoconservative-leaning journal Commentary.{{cn|date=January 2019}} Writer Nicholas Lemann has described these intellectuals as "the American Bloomsbury".{{cn|date=January 2019}}

Some, including Kristol, Sidney Hook, and Norman Podhoretz, later became key figures in the development of neoconservatism.{{cite book |last1=Hartman |first1=Andrew |title= A War for the Soul of America: A History of the Culture Wars |date=2015 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn= 978-0226379234}}

Members

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Writers often identified as members of this group include:

{{div col}}

  • Lionel Abel
  • Hannah Arendt
  • William Barrett
  • Daniel Bell{{cite book |last1=Wald |first1=Alan M. |title=The New York Intellectuals: The Rise and Decline of the Anti-Stalinist Left from the 1930s to the 1980s |date=1987 |publisher=UNC Press Books |isbn=978-0-8078-4169-3 |page=210 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mzlsL5s0GXYC&pg=PA210 |access-date=22 June 2020 |language=en}}{{cite book | last=Brick | first=Howard | title=Daniel Bell and the decline of intellectual radicalism : social theory and political reconciliation in the 1940s | publisher=University of Wisconsin Press | publication-place=Madison, Wis | year=1986 | isbn=978-0-299-10550-1 | oclc=12804502 | page=60-61,90,148}}{{cite journal | last=Wilford | first=Hugh | title=Playing the CIA's Tune? The New Leader and the Cultural Cold War | journal=Diplomatic History | publisher=Oxford University Press (OUP) | volume=27 | issue=1 | year=2003 | issn=0145-2096 | doi=10.1111/1467-7709.00337 | pages=15–34}}
  • Saul Bellow (despite his usual association with the city of Chicago)
  • Norman Birnbaum{{cn|date=January 2022}}
  • Elliot E. Cohen
  • Midge Decter
  • Morris Dickstein{{cite news |last=Roberts |first=Sam |date=2021-03-29 |title=Morris Dickstein, Critic and Cultural Historian, Dies at 81 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/26/books/morris-dickstein-dead.html |work=New York Times |access-date=2021-04-07}}
  • Leslie Fiedler
  • Nathan Glazer{{Citation needed|date=October 2020}}
  • Clement Greenberg{{sfn|Howe|1970|p=226}}
  • Paul Goodman{{sfn|Howe|1970|p=228}}
  • Richard Hofstadter
  • Sidney Hook{{cite book |last1=Wald |first1=Alan M. |title=The New York Intellectuals: The Rise and Decline of the Anti-Stalinist Left from the 1930s to the 1980s |date=1987 |publisher=UNC Press Books |isbn=978-0-8078-4169-3 |page=50 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mzlsL5s0GXYC&pg=PA50 |access-date=22 June 2020 |language=en}}Michael HOCHGESCHWENDER "The cultural front of the Cold War: the Congress for cultural freedom as an experiment in transnational warfare" Ricerche di storia politica, issue 1/2003, pp. 35-60
  • Irving Howe
  • Alfred Kazin
  • Irving Kristol
  • Norman Mailer{{cite book |last1=Jumonville |first1=Neil |title=Critical Crossings: The New York Intellectuals in Postwar America |date=1991 |publisher=University of California Press |page=187 |url=https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft9w1009t9&chunk.id=d0e5487&toc.id=d0e5478&brand=ucpress |access-date=7 April 2021 |language=en}}
  • Seymour Martin Lipset
  • Mary McCarthy{{cite book |last1=Wald |first1=Alan M. |title=The New York Intellectuals: The Rise and Decline of the Anti-Stalinist Left from the 1930s to the 1980s |date=1987 |publisher=UNC Press Books |isbn=978-0-8078-4169-3 |page=141 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mzlsL5s0GXYC&pg=PA141 |access-date=22 June 2020 |language=en}}
  • Dwight Macdonald{{sfn|Howe|1970|p=226}}
  • William Phillips
  • Norman Podhoretz{{Citation needed|date=October 2020}}
  • Philip Rahv
  • Harold Rosenberg
  • Isaac Rosenfeld
  • Delmore Schwartz{{sfn|Howe|1970|p=228}}
  • Susan Sontag
  • Harvey Swados
  • Diana Trilling
  • Lionel Trilling
  • Robert Warshow{{cn|date=January 2019}}

{{div col end}}

See also

References

{{Reflist}}

Bibliography

{{Refbegin}}

  • Bloom, Alexander. Prodigal Sons: The New York Intellectuals and Their World, Oxford University Press, 1986, {{ISBN|0-19-503662-X}}
  • Cooney, Terry A. The Rise of the New York Intellectuals: Partisan Review and Its Circle, 1934-1945, University of Wisconsin Press, 1986, {{ISBN|0-299-10710-8}}
  • Dorman, Joseph. Arguing the World: The New York Intellectuals in their Own Words. New York: Free Press, 2000. {{ISBN|0-684-86279-4}}.
  • {{Cite book |last1=Howe |first1=Irving |author-link=Irving Howe |chapter=The New York Intellectuals |title=Decline of the New |pages=211–265 |date=1970 |language=en |isbn=978-0-15-124510-9 |publisher=Harcourt, Brace & World |location=New York |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/declineofnew0000howe |df=mdy-all }}
  • Jumonville, Neil. Critical Crossings: The New York Intellectuals in Postwar America, University of California Press, 1991, {{ISBN|0-520-06858-0}}
  • Laskin, David. Partisans: Marriage, Politics, and Betrayal Among the New York Intellectuals University of Chicago Press, 2001, {{ISBN|0-226-46893-3}}
  • {{Cite book |last1=Podhoretz |first1=Norman |author-link=Norman Podhoretz |chapter=The Family Tree |title=Making It |pages=109–136 |date=1967 |language=en |publisher=Random House |location=New York |oclc=292070 |df=mdy-all }}
  • {{cite book

| last = Wald

| first = Alan M.

| author-link = Alan M. Wald

| title = The New York Intellectuals: The Rise and Decline of the Anti-Stalinist Left from the 1930s to the 1980s

| publisher = University of North Carolina Press

| date = 1987

| ISBN = 0-8078-4169-2}}

{{Refend}}

Further reading

{{refbegin}}

  • {{Cite encyclopedia |editor-last1=Eisenstadt |editor-first1=Peter |title=New York intellectuals |pages=1088– |date=2005 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tmHEm5ohoCUC&pg=PA1088 |language=en |isbn=978-0-8156-0808-0 |publisher=Syracuse University Press |encyclopedia=The Encyclopedia of New York State |df=mdy-all }}

{{refend}}

External links

  • [http://www.robertfulford.com/Intellectuals.html Lives of the New York intellectuals] by Robert Fulford in The Globe and Mail
  • [http://www.cardus.ca/comment/article/199 The Failure of the New York Intellectuals] by Daniel Silliman in Comment
  • [https://www.pbs.org/arguing/ Arguing the World], a PBS documentary

{{New York Intellectuals}}

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Category:Anti-Stalinist left

Category:Literary circles

Category:Literary criticism

Category:Culture of New York City

Category:Writing circles

Category:Jews and Judaism in New York City

Category:Socialism in New York (state)